The fact that her feet still didn’t move made her face the truth. She was afraid. Had he thought about her much, over the years? She’d hurt him. Time hadn’t dimmed her vivid recollection of his anger on that last day in his mother’s sitting room. His disbelief. His bitterness.
Chances were, he’d resent seeing her now. Maybe he’d reject her . . . walk away. Just like she’d walked away from him eight years ago.
Recognizing the source of her hesitation—of her fear—helped, but it didn’t lessen it a bit. Nevertheless, she began to walk toward the high-rise. Yeah, he might refuse to talk to her. Maybe she deserved that.
The doorman’s face remained wooden when she said Asher’s name. For a second, disappointment swooped through her. Asher wasn’t staying here—
“Asher Gaites, you mean?” the doorman asked.
“Oh . . . yes. Asher Gaites.” She’d forgotten he’d dropped the hyphenation of his last name. She knew that from seeing his byline on his articles.
The doorman smiled suddenly and stood from his chair, reaching for the phone. “That’s okay. I’ve been here a long time. I knew him when he was just a kid, and the Granville was still stuck to his last name. If you’re his friend, then you must know he’s come a long way since then. Not that he brags. I got a brother in L.A. who e-mails me links to his stories. You know he’s up for a Pulitzer?”
Laila nodded. She heard the pride in the older man’s voice. She recognized it because she’d felt it herself so many times, reading Asher’s words.
“Something else, that kid,” the doorman said. “Who shall I tell him is here, beautiful?”
She swallowed thickly. She experienced another wild urge to run.
“Ma’am? Sorry about the beautiful. You are, though.”
Laila laughed at his unexpected combination of sheepish gruffness. Her amusement penetrated her anxiety.
“Laila. Laila Barek.”
He nodded once and dialed the phone. A muted roar started up in her ears in the silence that followed. He wasn’t answering. Thank God, he wasn’t there.
Shit. Now I’m going to have to find the nerve to do this all over again.
“Asher.” Her stomach lurched. “It’s Pete down at the desk. There’s a young lady here to see you.” He glanced up at Laila and winked. “A real looker. You always did have the prettiest girls coming to visit. Uh . . . Laila. Laila Brek, wasn’t it?”
“Barek,” Laila said through a sandpapery throat.
The ensuing silence was unbearable. A slightly confused expression came over the doorman’s weathered face. He cast her a curious glance. Laila felt ill.
“He says he’s in a rush to make an appointment with his attorney,” Pete said awkwardly as he hung up the phone a moment later.
“Oh, of course,” Laila said, backing away, hiding her mortification and hurt as best she could. “It was just an impulse thing, stopping by. Well . . . have a good afternoon.”
Pete nodded once. She could still picture his sympathetic expression as she plunged through the revolving doors and rushed down the sidewalk.
Chapter Nineteen
She usually arrived at the club an hour and a half before showtime. Rafe had installed a small spa in the performer dressing room area, which included a dry sauna and steam showers. The spa helped her relax before a performance, something she sorely needed tonight. She’d been so tense and nauseated after that trip to Asher’s condominium, she hadn’t been able to eat again all day.
Rafe must have noticed her tension that evening when she arrived at her dressing room. He came up behind where she sat at a vanity and began rubbing her shoulder. Laila winced. Whether it was from her wound-up state or a reaction to his touch, she couldn’t say.
“What’s got you strung so tight?” Rafe asked, his handsome, thin face tightening with concern in the mirror.
“I might have overdone it at the gym.” She sidestepped the question, smiling. She reached up and grabbed his hand, a polite way to stop his massaging fingers. Their stares met in the mirror and she squeezed his hand reassuringly. “I’ll go and sit in the sauna. It always melts away all my knots.”
“Maybe I’ll join you,” Rafe murmured, his French accent thickening a little, as it always did, when he became aroused. Not that she knew the full extent of his amorous tells. They hadn’t made love yet. Laila was determined to take it slow with him. In fact . . . she usually took things slow with all her boyfriends. It was her modus operandi, and probably the chief complaint of a majority of her exes.
She watched in the mirror as he leaned down. He
r stomach muscles clenched. He pressed his mouth to the side of her neck. Her hand drifted up and clutched at his head as he kissed her neck and the slope of her shoulder.
“How would you like that? A nice. Hot. Sauna. Only Phoebe, Jared and Miguel are upstairs,” he said thickly between kisses, referring to a waitress, a cook and the club’s audio tech, who were there prepping for the night. None of the other members of her band had arrived yet. His well-trimmed goatee tickled her skin. Laila found herself wondering, off topic, what it would be like to be kissed by a man with a full beard.